Hello, and may this day find you well and safe, two iffy constructs in these dark days for American government and public safety. But that's neither here nor there (although it may feel like everywhere).
I stumbled across this in my Dropbox whilst looking for an ancient song I had written in the mid 1970s. It is from Sharebook, a feature that appears no longer to be available at blogspot.com for bloggers to archive their work, and it begins with a post from May 7, 2007 and ends with one at February 21, 2012. The blog went on for a few posts, and featured a revival announcement in August, 2023. That last is, though, the last. The revival never was followed up upon, and will not likely be.
Still, this little online book, spreading across some 277 pages of .pdf file, is fun to explore, at least for me. Many of its links got lost in the process of publication and a cursory click-thru demonstrates that many of the links that survived take one to a polite "page not found" message.
During Oh! Second Life!'s publication online, I was teaching young kids about technologyin independent then public schools whilst helping my wife to raise our own two kids, and Second Life for education was my primary creative side hustle. My involvement with virtual worlds for learning spread and grew over decades, until upon my May, 2022 retirement I audibly brushed together my hands and for reasons I can understand better than I can explain, I turned my back on the teaching world. I will herein say that I was so done with the reshaping of schools into businesses, and the data-driven administration of them (just how accurate was that data, beginning with standardized testing results?), that I was, like, outta there, and for good--for my own, if for no one else's.
So. There you are. Pretty much the sum total of my educational experience over 5 years of the nearly two decades of what people called Leadership in that field. I made friends, and many of those were from other geolocations--Australia, Germany, Great Britain, Canada, Japan. Once we loosely organized, we were always just on the "about to be" side of the Bell Curve of Adoption. It may be that those still involved will always be, and will pass, in turn, their own fascination and dedication to its newbies, who will one day do the same. It may be that the experiences within virtual worlds are simply so unfathomable to the unitiated that they will never be of real use to the powers that shape "the education system." Who knows?
What I know is that these engaging fascinations, with their promising and unfulfilled possibilities, are archived palpably in the blog, which is still available on Google's blogger.com platform (possibly useful if one wants to pursue a lost link) and shared here for as long as my Dropbox footprint evades the inevitable and eradicating winds of time.
Looking forward to the upcoming ISTE VEN Reunion in Second Life, I dug into my bloated SL inventory and struck paydirt in the form of snapshots auto-named for the location and coordinates where they were taken. It was a quick search for "iste island" and it yielded enough snapshots for what you'll see here, if you have the patience to view a 5+ minute video comprised of them. The video and music is courtesy of my Screencast-o-matic Pro account, filmed from my desktop whilst standing in front of the images displaying in an image viewer object (Multi-photo Display, Sold by Iain MaltzVisit The Store) at the new Virtual Environments Network homeplace, now viewable there. Many of the pics were taken for my long-running blog, "Oh, Virtual Learning," which ended years ago but is still available at Blogspot. I suggest you go all full screen with it! I hope you enjoy:
I'm experiencing an ongoing therapeutic program designed to promote resilience in this time of societal retreat. Thankfully, my school district is footing the bill, and I admire that in an employer. Thank you Metro Nashville Public Schools.
The online platform is called Tiatros. I haven't done my research to understand the etymology of that word, but I should. Heck, let me pop out right now...
Like I say, it makes sense: Essentially, the core concept of the therapy, which includes some lecture video, some meditative audio, and some reflection in answer to questions about one's life, is that telling and sharing one's story is a healing process. I tend to agree. Anyway, I want to share one part of my story that I shared in answer to a question about a difficult effort in my life, one that has not yet been fully realized and may never be. Here it is, copied and pasted from my online response:
I have been advocating for being "together at a distance" through virtual worlds for nearly all of the twenty-five years I have been a teaching. I had elementary school students in a space called Quest Atlantis twenty years ago, and I recognized the value of immersive synchronous learning environments so strongly that I founded ISTE's Virtual Environments Network with at its core a network of educators primarily meeting in Second Life, a massive online avatar community where I have met many thought leaders who have become cherished colleagues and friends. That work still goes on, as the PLN's mission has expanded to all digital realities. I lead a daily get-together in a range of virtual spaces as we speak, today in Engage, which offers a platform on computer but primarily on 3D goggle devices, to watch educational TEDTalks and discuss them. A handful of educators from all over the world have spent two weeks in Second Life, then two in VirBELA, then these two in Engage, experiencing being together at a distance in different ways. We'll be in AltspaceVR the next two weeks then lord knows where after that. There are over 70 virtual synchronous worlds at latest count. Maybe we'll see them all. Getting the Education mainstream to pay attention has been a challenge but I'm still plugging away, with a little help from my friends. Yes, it's been difficult and confusing, until it's not. Google all that. It's a thing, and in this time when we should be exploring and considering new alternatives for learning, it's a powerful thing.
There. I got that off my chest. Now I'm sharing it with you, emphasis added in post-production. I just laughed a little. Stay well and safe.
This past two weeks I have been sharing Education-themed TEDTalks with a handful of other teachers who met with me in Second Life. Details about that are at the event's supporting website.
Yesterday my friend in Egypt (yes I was with her as an avatar although I am in Nashville and she is in Egypt--see how that works?) used the randomizing spinner I made at classtools.net to select the video. I was glad the event takes place over text chat and not over voice: Over the next hour, I found myself occasionally tearing up at the beauty of what we shared together. It was Gustavo Dudamel conducting the gigantic El Sistema youth orchestra, then its paired TEDTalk, El Sistema's founder Jose Abreu talking about how Venezuela's national orchestral youth program came to be and grew into a replicatable program.
Happy Friday, everyone, or as we now call it, "Day." In the past we might have given everyone we came upon at work that greeting, but things, as we now say, have changed. So, well, Happy Day.
For those who may be experience some disequilibrium over how to spend time during the hours previously labeled "the work day," I would like to offer a modest contribution: Every day, at the same time of the day, let's go online into a virtual space where we can be "together at a distance" and view, together, a randomly selected TEDTalk about what teaching and learning has looked like in the past, looks like now and how it might look in the future. We will start, the first week, in Second Life.
I woke up Monday, the first day of Tennessee's Safer at Home order from our state government, and what should have been the first day back to school from Spring Break, with the idea. I've been working on it ever since.
Some backstory:
Back in the first decade of the 2000s, I was teaching in the Lower School (elementary) computer lab at University School of Nashville. I also worked on Mondays at the Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach, though at first that group was called the Vanderbilt Office of Science Outreach. It was the brainchild of the brilliant Dr. Virginia Shepherd and USN was kind enough to release me from my teaching schedule each Monday to work with the CSO in the role of Teacher-in-Residence.
I was meeting my new colleagues at Vanderbilt, my first day of work in that new job, when one of us got a call that America had been attacked on 9/11. During the 8 years I worked in that role at Vanderbilt, I focused on helping schools utilize the thirty or so videoconferencing codecs we had already placed in public schools, working closely with Vanderbilt Virtual School's Jan Zanetis. This was before the days of desktop videoconferencing and that help was needed. During the course of time I created a podcast that brought interviews with working scientists, computer tips, and independent music to the world--early "edutainment"-- which I called "Snacks For the Brain!" Its 84 episodes are archived at the Vanderbilt library's online repository. Have a listen to one produced near the end of those, featuring Dr. William Schafner with some timely info on viruses:
Those were some times.
Another project toward the end of those days was one I called "CSO TalkTalks." I set up a CSO space in 2nd Life and used my Second Life blog "Oh, Virtual Learning," to promote and set up each ~monthly event to vote on one of four proposed TEDTalks then watch it in that space together. It proved to be very fun and a way educator/learners could spend some quality time discussing the talks' content in text chat while the videos were going on. It had a kind of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" vibe because "talking" during the video was highly encouraged--in fact, it was key to the experience.
Note: it's actually Saturday, though I've been writing this early morning and the fact that I started doing so simply underscores the depth of my own schedule disequilibrium, hahahaha.
But I digress, LOL. Beginning next week, on Monday, March 31, at 10am US Central Daylight Savings Time, we will begin ISTE Virtual Environment Networks "Mystery Education Theater." We will do so daily, Monday through Friday. All the info is here. It will go a bit like the venerable CSO TalkTalks with some variations, but in addition to getting all of us together in a virtual platform (a different one every week until we run out of them and cycle back through), it will help us focus, daily, on how prominent minds have mused upon the broad topic of Education and what we think about what they have shared.
In the planning for this free Professional Development, we at ISTE VEN have developed a randomizing tool I often use in the classroom. One of the fabulous free-to-teachers online tools available at classtools.net, you can find it for your own use, should you be unable to join us at the daily appointed time, to pick your own video(s) to watch at a time that you schedule daily to do so. There. That's my free offering to you for your daily schedule.
I've said for years that any school or school district who supports Professional Learning with travel funds should REQUIRE a detailed account of how time was spent at conference or workshop. Though my "budget neutral" school district (hate that term) did not support this trip, I am in the habit of providing same. So.
Instead of my traditional rambling post or series of posts, I'm choosing to document this year's International Society for Technology in Education's annual Conference and Expo in Philadelphia with all the photos I took along with notated comments. Comments contain links to places visited, colleagues hugged, and more; including beaucoup resources from events at which I presented or which I attended. My work here is done. All I can say is--Go for it! And enjoy!
There will be a live recap discussion with Andy Wheelock and yours truly in Second Life on Tuesday, July 16, at http://tinyurl.com/istevenetwork -- join us at 5pm Pacific Time!
I will come back on over the coming week to add descriptions/comments on these, but for now this is the sum total of my pics. Some are with Colin and his lovely girlfriend Kat, some are dining, etc., and there are a few from the poster session with dear Mary Howard, the Community Networking Fair, and a whole bunch from our Games and Simulations and Virtual Environments Playground, which I pronounce a rousing success. All our planning paid off and we made tons of new friends and gained a ton of new members. I love me an educator hungry to learn more about developments in AR/MR/DR and Virtual Reality for learning and teaching. Here's the first batch of photos, from Friday night with my boy-o and his lovely girlfriend Kat to the moment, approaching PLN Happy Hour back at the Convention Center followed by the Flipgrid Party. I'll pretty this post up later, but for now:
Pardon the long and textual post, but I have an important question to ask: Have you been wondering what the meaning of "reality' is?
At the ISTE Virtual Environments Network, we've been exploring that question since before 2000! Surprisingly, we have found some answers. Our professional learning network orbits around the concept of "together at a distance," a term coined by co-founding member Peggy Sheehy. With the advent of new technologies like 3D goggles and rapidly developing innovations in virtual worlds--some of which are actually experientially accessible within 3D goggles--we might expand that concept to "together, anywhere, at a distance."
We meet at least twice a month, together, from wherever we are. It is not unusual for us to gather around a crackling campfire, seated comfortably, dressed stylishly, and everyone lookin' good, to discuss PLN business. I am on a kitchen counter stool in my home in Nashville, Tennessee; Mary is in her living room on an island in the shadow of Niagara Falls; Andy is at his home office table with his son laughing in the next room. Others are in Virginia, or California, or Canada. But--and here's the rub--we are all here. Sure, we could Zoom or Google Hangout, but this is somehow more fun. Everyone needs fun, even teachers!
Kurt Vonnegut's physician son is famously quoted for this comment: "We are all here to help one another through this--whatever 'this' is." That's what we do at VEN: We help one another through this.
Besides our monthly "OOH" (Open Office Hours), VEN produces, at our headquarters in Second Life, a monthly "Focus Session" which features an innovative educator sharing her or his innovative creation that leverages the unique affordances of virtual environments. Often, we teleport from these events as a group to a site within Second Life or Open Simulator, to explore together, communicating in text chat and voice our wonder and our insights, our questions and our answers.
Our huge annual culminating event traditionally takes place at ISTE's annual Conference and Expo. Ya'll, we inventedthe Playground. Initially that sort of event at ISTE NECC (National Educational Computing Conference) took place for several hours during the conference and was called a "Lounge." The Second Life Lounge at NECC 2007 was where I first met, in person, a core group of ISTE educators who already were meeting regularly in Second Life and whom I already thought of as friends and colleagues. There was even a working docent program within the virtual world, where educators could and did schedule themselves (themavatarselves) to be on duty to meet with other educators, both those familiar with ISTE and those not. The large building at ISTE Island offered a very large stone-paved front porch, where we would "widen the circle" of avatars as new arrivals joined the conversation. At that time there was no voice engine in Second Life and everything was in text chat. I always thought that made me more intentional in my comments than I would have been in voice, and there was a substantial backlash when Linden Lab did enable that feature.
But I digress, as is my wont. I'm sending out this notice to ask you to join in the fun. Volunteer for ISTE wherever you wish to serve, but especially, serve with us. We will widen the circle with you. It will open up worlds of learning.
For our November 2018 third Tuesday ISTE Virtual Environments Network Focus Session, we welcomed Valerie Hill, aka Valibrarian Gregg, to the VEN Headquarters for "Digital Citizenship: Sharing Stories through a Community Drum."
Watch...
Then if you are of a resource-exploration mind, explore...
Monday was a huge day for us. We started out by racing to the conference center, arriving at 7:00am. Our "Ready Player 101: Imagining, Creating, and Sharing Worlds in Digital Reality" Playground was scheduled to open at 8 and run to 11:30. I had scoped out the space on Saturday and I was thoroughly satisfied that we had planned this playground more thoroughly than any in the past. Well, at least since they had been re-allocated a half-day time slot. Back in the day we had full days, and before that, 3 day Playground!
I set to work establishing a working station at the presentation area, which included a 40" or so flat panel video monitor with a single PA speaker on a post stand, a tall single cocktail table, and 18 upholstered cubes for audience seating. I had scheduled connectivity testing with the three (of six) presenters who were doing so remotely. Those went well--Skype worked great for voice, Second Life was doing okay despite a low frame rate of delivery, Sinespace functioned fine over Skype desktop share, and we were good to go with sound and video by the time testing was complete.
Before the Playground
After the Playground
Rather than blow-by-blow the event, I'll just give you a set of references that will lend understanding:
The schedule (of our side):
Many of the presenters shared their slides and/or other resources, and those can all be accessed our conference "Digital Tote" folder--see
If there is something you need that you don't see there, please comment here and we'll add it to the folder.
It was crazy before it started. Sort of off in the corner during setup I was spared the pre-scheduled swarm (which proved to be prophetic), but as soon as Mary and Andy started setting up our tables they were swamped by eager conference attendees filled with curiosity and an eagerness to learn. As a result, vibrant learning sessions were already in full swing there by the time my first scheduled presentation was scheduled to begin--and it was to feature Mary and Andy! Our first flexibility was to point folks to their tables to join in on their learning sessions that way (lesson 1 of many).
My second scheduled presentation station event was difficult to "audience" (not that I can recall that word being verbed). The Playground was packed, both our side and the far side (from me) staffed by the Games and Learning PLN. Table presenters were talking and demonstrating on laptops a mile a minute. The G&S Network's presentation station, opposite ours, was full of folks, due both to Kae Novak's audience enlistment mic work and to the placement of that presentation station. I went to work on the mic, sounding a little like a carnival barker, and in a few minutes we had a tidy audience of 6 or 7 to watch Brant Knudsen login to Skype and to Second Life to share the fantastic Pirate Battle Game he uses in his classes at The University of Hong Kong. Yes, we were sharing LIVE from HONG KONG!
That is one of the best affordances of virtual worlds: a sense of presence at a distance. It's perceived co-location despite geographic remove. Brant was actually "with" us at 9am US CDT Time although he was also in Hong Kong at 10pm his own time. Groovy.
Meanwhile, the tables were rocking, and since the presenter from Unity3D had not arrived (and never did--they were swamped in their own way on the Expo floor. That turned out to be okay since there was lots of unity going on over on the G&S side), Bob Vojtek took over the 3rd table while Rosie Vojtek peopled the long table sharing info about Virtual Education Journal. Bob had an admirable pile of 3D gear laid out, including haptic controllers and a 3D camera, and he was walking people through 3D everything, many for the very first time. Andy was sharing CoSpaces and OpenSimulator with eager learners, and Mary was rocking her table with a pile of Mergecubes and sharing lesson plans for using them in the classroom. Weeeeeeeeeeeeee! Click to play:
Toward the end of the Playground, during the part where our connections at the presentation station was more or less taken over with a Second Life feed and the sound in SL failed us so I was looping the movies they were sharing there on the screen, I did a few minutes Facebook Live Video that I think may give you even more of a sense of how that active morning went. Here it is:
By the end of the event we agreed that it had been the best Playground in a long long time. We packed up all our gear and signage and tried to leave the space as clean and ready to set up as we found it.
Monday? Just getting started! Andy and I decided to run up to get lunch and we headed up to the place I had stopped into for dinner Saturday, Weather Mark Tavern. We had the burger lunch special-- delicious--and then got back down to the conference center for some Poster session cruising and Mary's presentation.
Mary did a stellar job with her presentation, "Is 3D for Me?" The ppt for it is available in her digital tote, and it is most definitely worth however many clicks it will take for you to get to it. I took a few pics there, too, as Mary shared everything from basic definitions of 3D to lesson plans replete with templates. Follow Mary's blog "Using Your Smarticles" to reap regular rewards from that connection. She's absolutely amazing:
Andy and I headed back up to the hotel for a bit of a rest. Shortly after we got there, our friend Caitlin Krause, just in from Switzerland, texted Andy and wanted to get together. She was going to run down (literally, run) from her hotel farther north to ours. When she texted she was here, we met her downstairs and decided to go for coffee. It was WINDY, though hot, and it was so great to catch up with her and where she is in her mindfulness journey as we strolled up to Starbucks. You can learn a bit about Caitlin at MindWise, her website, but I feel like I know more after spending only an hour or two with her. All her work, she is more and more discovering, boils down to the importance of human connections. At one point she mentioned that when people want to plumb her expertise about things mindfulness, she increasingly
finds herself talking about connections. It's a rarefied path she is on, and I look forward to following her as she nurtures her spirit and her charm and her intuitive grasp of how things work to move her work forward. Mary joined us, and later Caitlin's pal Andy. We talked a bit deep, laughed a lot, and learned what one another was doing. I suggested we head over to Buckingham Fountain (see that previous post for more) to enjoy the early afternoon. We did.
Are we still on Monday? I told you it would be a big day. Caitlin and Andy #2 left for their place and the three musketeers of virtual reality strolled inland in search of a place we could have a beer or two or three. Our presenting work was done (excepting one small Tuesday morning task for me, which turned out to be quite fun for me). We ended up at Kitty O'Shea's Pub, close to the hotel, for dinner--delicious--then at Buddy Guy's Legends, which I describe in detail in that much-referenced previous post, then put in for a good night's sleep. Here, though, you must see this (thank you, Mary!):
and this:
and finally, and good night (watch for Take 4, the finale, soon!) this:
ISTE 2018 was the best ISTE ever. I've been attending these events for a while, on the order of 20 years or so; and watching the organization grow, growing my network of friends/colleagues in the organization, and helping it grow by volunteering time to do so. In that theme, at my first ISTE event on Saturday of the conference I was awarded the President's Volunteer Service award, Bronze, for significant numbers of hours spent in volunteer activities, which included planning/meeting each week with my Professional Learning Network, chairing a proposal review committee for the conference (over 5,000 proposals were submitted this year!), presenting at other (online) conferences about our work with ISTE, and more. Last year I had worked at least as many hours but chose not to submit an due to my disdain for the supposed POTUS (yes, I'll say that here), but this year I did so and I was pleased to find that 45's name does not appear anywhere on the certificate. My two previous Service awards, a Bronze and a Silver in that order, bear the name and signature (stamped, obviously) of Barack Obama, and I cherish those. I am proud of this one as well, especially as all evidence points to the reality that Drumph knows nothing about it. Anyone who knows me should know that I oppose the dissolution of government services created to serve Americans and to protect them from corporate exploitation, and the in-progress process to channel the "savings" into profits for the rich. I'll stop. At least in this post. #resist #nevergiveup
Let's go day by day:
Friday
So. I flew into O'Hare without incident, Lyfted to the Hotel, where they had a room ready for me/us. I had requested a nice view and I'm sure they did the best they could, an 11th floor two-double room with an historic office building across the street and a nice view of the Marina and Sailors' Pier available if you went right up to the window. I got my bags in my room and hurried to make my TILT assignation, as described in my previous post. After walking my partner-in-TILT Helen to her hotel I turned heel and headed toward mine. It was 3+miles and I knew I was being ambitious; but what I didn't know was that I would get turned around, take a walking path around the main drag, and end up walking in the growing intense rain and increasing cold a mile+ past the turn off to my hotel. When I realized my mistake I called, with the last percentage point of battery life on my iPhone, a Lyft to rescue me. While I was "misplaced" I took a panoramic photo of the beach.
Notice how there are, like, no buildings anywhere nearby?
Once safely in my hotel room and out of the wet chill that predominated that Chicago evening, I holed up in my hotel room, ordered a burger from room service, and worked on details for Monday's VEN Playground, turning in at a reasonable hour.
Saturday
I rose early and worked out in the admittedly (seriously outdated) hotel exercise room. afterword, I went straight out and rented my first DIvvY bike (see that previous post). I had been scheduled to attend Steve Hargadon's "Hack Education" event, always stellar, but as the morning went on and Chicago weather just got better and better, I unconsciously made the decision to selfishly enjoy the day instead of racing down to the McCormick Place Center to finalize my conference registration and attend that event. I am certain I would have learned a lot at Hack Education, but since I paid for this trip completely on my own dime I felt like I could do that. And did.
Back at the hotel I dressed and joined other early arrivers at a PLN Core Volunteer Reception down at the rooftop of McCormick Place Convention Center. I may have mentioned that the Center is the 4th largest convention center in the nation; but I found my way uneventfully to the rooftop and enjoyed a nice spread of appetizers which drew from the immense range of international foods Chicago has to offer. I also got more annual conference hugs of the conference, including Jennifer Regan-Fore,
Vincent Barnett
Camilla Gaglioni
and
Lauren Suveges
After the reception I found walked back to the Congress Plaza hotel and did some more planning, watched the first episode of Netflix's "Kiss Me First" on my Oculus Go goggles, and retired. I actually fell asleep with the goggles on, awakening around 2 a.m. to take them off, roll over, and sleep like a kitten. Sunday
Sunday I arose early, headed out for a bike and tooled around for a couple hours. I rode into Grant Park, really headed no place in particular. I rounded a curve on the park bike trail south of my hotel and came upon a large gathering of folks, clearly assembling for a run of some sort. Many were adjusting their numbers on their shirts as a loudspeaker as the loudspeaker broadcast a beautiful voice singing the National Anthem. When it concluded, the announcer encouraged a round of applause for Lee Ann Rimes. Ah, a little touch of Nashville on this fine Chicago morning!
I returned to the hotel, cleaned up, and I hopped into a Lyft to McCormick Place as I was running a bit tight on time.
In the hallway I got a whole load of new ISTE-annual hugs, featuring Jan Zanetis, Kecia Ray, Jessica Medaille, Kathy Schrock, and many others. I was glad to collect one from Mary Howard, my good friend and colleague, who arrived from the airport just as the the entree was served. I had saved her salad for her though! Annual award winners were announced, celebrated, and received their awards, and I felt honored to be in a room with so many dedicated folks. This is the event were I received my bronze Presidential Service award and Mary received her silver.
As we were leaving the Awards Luncheon, I had the best experience bumping into an idol of mine, David Warlick. Dave was only there for a couple of hours, having more or less crashed the conference to attend the Awards Luncheon: He is a recipient of the coveted "Making IT Happen" award, a high honor ISTE only gives to 5 or so educators every year at the traditional luncheon. I had forgotten to pack mine, but I remember the feeling of being so honored an organization with over 20,000 members. Anyway, I was so pleased to chat with him and to hear he is putting finishing touches on a new book. Semi-retired, Dave enjoys godlike status in my esteem, an elite educational thought leader when "Web 2.0" was only beginning to flourish. His educational perspectives and philosophies have guided my practice for over a decade.
Mary had gone off to check into her hotel--she had come straight to the luncheon after dropping her bags--and I headed for the Posters area of the conference to get set up our little booth for the annual ISTE PLN Networking Fair. This is a 2+ hour walk-up share-out about our network, one of the more than 20 groups of ISTE members who benefit from Network leadership offerings around educational topics year-round. I think that our Virtual Environments Network may be the only one that meets weekly all year long, mostly because virtual worlds afford us the opportunity to do so in ways far superior to a conference call on any platform. Every week the core members of our group meet up and offer the opportunity to all of the more than 1700 members who have indicated they want to stay in touch with VEN that way. You can learn all about what we do at our PLN website. Mary Howard and I set it all up and were joined midway by the erstwhile Bob and Rosie Vojtek, who had only the day before dropped the AMAZING summer issue of our network's Virtual Education Journal. To see that one with one click, visit
To read all the amazing issues of this publication, now in its third great year, visit http://issuu.com/edovation.
During the Fair, we met with countless interested educators, many new to the conference. It's a whole new group of educators who have the potential to help leverage 3D learning technologies into a huge plus-plus for our young people (and for other educators!) so we were diligent in detailing as many of the prospects as we could in as many conversations as we could have. Here are a few pics from that whirlwind event:
The Fair over, we hustled over to the "Special Entrance" to the Opening Keynote. It always makes me feel special that ISTE admin lets us sneak in and go down front, especially here with the record number of attendees (24,000 plus). Each element of the program was great, especially the four students
interviewed on an onstage panel. Two were high school students and two in college, and they discussed the ways they had used technology to help their communities. All four of them were soooo well-spoken, clearly dedicated, and ready to keep serving and improve their dedication and execution of service to others, and on a global scale. This could not help but give the attendees at least a glimmer of hope in these times, so dark for America.
The Keynote, David Eagelton, brain researcher and author, made a legitimate case that we are not teaching students who have the same kinds of brains as we have, and that instruction must change to support optimal learning. Watch a brief recap:
With record conference turnout, he had a good receptive crowd in that room. He paced back and forth as he made his points and substantiated them, and my only criticism is that he went a bit long. Still, it was a good start to the keynotes.
After the keynote, Mary and I parted ways. Mary had not yet checked into her room at the Hyatt attached to the conference center, so she ran along to do that and I headed back up to my place on a bike and worked some more on plans for Monday, our biggest day. Andy got in from his flight and came in to the room around 8:30 p.m., and as always it was like meeting up with a long lost brother after a year's absence. Sure ,we talk online at least weekly, but despite what our virtual educational focus might lead one to think, there's nothing as real as really being together. He dropped his bags and we walked to get a bite to eat, landing at the South Loop Tavern, an Irish Pub with Irish servers and Irish food. We hiked back to the hotel, stopping by Whole Foods Market for hotel room beer--a six-pack of Sinister IPA for me and a local red beer for the Spiff (Andy's Second Life avatar's first name). We were out like two lights pretty soon, wisely choosing to stock up on rest in order to prepare for our big Monday at ISTE!
I think I've rambled on enough for now, and I can promise at least one more post about the
Hi, all, I just finished posting at my Falcons Tech blog and since I'm in the groove I wanted to update here. It'll likely be a bit of a chaotic post, since my life is sort of there at the moment.
Mostly, having put the school year behind me, I'm looking ahead to 2018-19 as we move into a portable during construction and then into a brand new computer lab. I'm working on ways to fund new equipment in the new lab. Stay tuned on that...
Looking immediately ahead, I'm knee-deep in the planning for ISTE2018 in Chicago. I'll be flying up the 22nd to get the lay of the land and attend pre-conference activities, particularly Hack Education 2018 on Saturday, an "unconference" that is always a deep learning dive.
On Monday morning, June 25, the Virtual Environments Network presents its 2018 Virtual Environments Playground. VEN was one of the first ever "Focus Groups" to present a day long, themed event, the "Second Life Lounge," in Atlanta at my first ISTE conference. Back then the conference was called NECC (the National Educator's Computing Conference), and that format morphed into the "Playground," as the "Second Life Playground," and then settled into the "Virtual Environments Playground" the third year of its existence. Learn about the beginnings of ISTE.
Anyway, that's my fun focus now. It's especially challenging as our focus at VEN has broadened to include, not just virtual worlds like Second Life and OpenSim, but all things virtual--mixed, augmented, and virtual realities. Along those lines we have some very special guests at the Playground this year. When schedules get finalized, which we anticipate being so on June 19, you'll be the first to know here.
I am also fishing every day I can this summer. I caught a nice catfish at Lake Marrowbone just Monday:
Finally (for now) I just had a birthday and my much-loved, loving wife bought me a new toy, the just-released Oculus Go. I'm very much enjoying noodling around in there and looking for educational potentials--my focus in all things new. Expect some blogging on that here. I am firing back up a dormant blog, "Nashville360VR" just for fun, so head on over there if you have some goggles, or even if you don't.
Over and out for today. #abetterbloggerinthesummer.
I logged into SL this morning to an announcement of an upcoming event and I went there.
You may or may not know that the ISTE Virtual Environments Network meets most every 3rd Tuesday of most every month to view and share machinima. What is that? It's film made from video in online games or virtual worlds. This hour was the culmination of a year of competition and the organizers were clearly dedicated to the art of machinima.
I had to go. Now I have my work cut out for me (in spare time, certainly not in my work day as middle school Technology Teacher). I want to view as many of the winners as I can. I've browsed around a bit, and what I've glimpsed is nothing short of stellar. I have a link for ya.
The videos were originally archived for viewing at the site linked below, but it appears to have been taken down. I'm not sure why, but I can speculate: Second Life has been known to be a bit picky about websites using the moniker "SL" for any part of their names. So, skip to the bottom for a list I pulled out of an immense text chat log.
Here are the winners for the University of Western Australia's 2018 Machinima Awards, as judged by a panel of educators from diverse geolocations. The big winner is at the very end, just like the winners were presented!
Judges:
- Chantal Harvey - Judging Panel Chair
- Harnake Hunspal - Freelance Producer and Director
- Tess Baxter – Digital artist and PhD candidate in contemporary art at Lancaster University
- Craig Harbison – CEO of Diamond gate Films,
The panel for the Merlion Prize was jointly led by Singh Albatross and Kaylee West. The panel for the PookyMedia Prize, led by Pooky Amsterdam (these winners are not shared because their links were not shared in text chat, and viewing them is, after all, the point of this post)
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The panel for the UWA Prize & Craft Prizes, was led by Janway Zifanwe.
3RD PLACE: ”The River of Forgetting” by NATASCHA RANDT and KARIMA HOISAN of Gelsenkirchen, Germany and San Isidro del General, Costa Rica -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikl7lnCOP1k
1ST PLACE: The WINNER of the Slartist@UWA Machinima Challenge: Art of the Artists: “Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) and Intrusion Detection System(IDS)” by GLASZ DECUIR -- https://vimeo.com/249233312
