"Real Life Experiences in Virtual Worlds" Video Archive!

I mentioned that I was tapped (at the last minute, hence my extempore performance!) to sit up front and say a few words at the Internet2 New Orleans panel on Thursday and I am pleased that there's a very nicely mounted video archive now available. I'm 'way down about 52:20 into the thing, but you can learn from my distinguished co-panelists (and watch me madly live-blogging and trying to follow along in Second Life all at the same time), if you have a few moments. It was an honor to be asked to formally participate and I'll likely grab audio from the archive for my next podcast! I only wish the first panel, on Tuesday, had been so archived!

Watch the whole "Real Life Experiences in Virtual Worlds" presentation video archive at the Internet2 Fall Meeting website.

Live Blog! Internet2 in New Orleans!

I can't seem to get the title of this right at coveritlive, but the gist is there. I'll correct it all from home later this week. Meanwhile, check out the liveblog from its record below, and keep in mind that I was juggling a Second Life client, chat in SL and in Skype, and trying to liveblog and figure out what I would say (Randy asked me to sit up at the panel table and join in, minutes before we went live). I had planned to ustream the thing, which in retrospect I probably should've done, since inworld folks said the I2 stream wasn't working for them, but there ya go, I didn't. Hopefully the stream will be made available for archive later, then you can see each person's informative contributions and how interested the attendees were, which was considerably.



Thanks to the I2 folks for the invite to participate. I'd never have dreamed of attending this mostly highly technical conference and I'd never have met so many wonderfully engaged and engaging technology leaders without that. Thanks to the Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach, its own set of thought leaders, for funding; and thanks to University School of Nashville for allowing me ProfDev leave to attend. I didn't consult the school calendar before asking them, but I'd likely not have asked if I'd done so and realized that I have today and tomorrow and the weekend off for Fall Break!

Now it's off to home with a tour of the Gibson Guitar Factory with me boy Colin on the way home from the airport. I hope they let me take pictures and blog the tour :)

From Internet2 in New Orleans

It went great. I was particularly impressed with every single one of my co-presenters. You have to look and see the esteemed company I was with. I'm flattered, challenged, and humbled.

I went first, doing my best to honor the 5 minute (what happened to the 6-7 minutes we'd planned for?) but hearing that Oscar play off music in the final of my 6 minutes in the form of Ben Fineman sneaking up behind me at the podium. My slideshow is here for you (see below) and as you see I'd prepped mostly images to talk over; and though I sounded to myself somewhat deranged racing through what I'd prepped to say (I'm normally yr average drawling Southerner) the audience response was good and my panel colleagues were smiling and nodding their heads as I raged on about Second Life and its value for teaching and learning, MUVErs' nearly-ready-for-prime-time work with learning objects in Second Life, and my own upcoming work with 4th graders in Quest Atlantis.

Merrilea Mayo, Director of Future Learning Initiatives, packed her brief presentation with dramatic stats and graphs, beginning with the graph speaking to the difference between the impact potential of traditional learning institutions and practices to the impact potential of games and gaming. This is one that I hope she will share for broad distribution and I take the liberty of reproducing it from her presentation here:


Rob Rothfarb, from the Center for Learning and Teaching at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, took the podium next, and his talk centered around the work done by that group on Second Life's SciIsland, detailing in particular his group's work with the recent total eclipse of the sun, when around 150 avatars stayed for the full 5 hour experience, replicated verrrrry slowly, as in real life, in virtual space.

Margaret Corbitt, on staff at Cornell University, is another pioneer on several fronts, including the SciCentr Online Museum of Virtual Worlds. For her presentation she quickly downloaded her group's private Active-Worlds based browser on my laptop, and I'm glad to say I still have it! She mentioned the high security standards of the project during her talk and mentioned that if I wanted to continue using it I must send in a letter of request on my school's letterhead. I'm on that like a cheap suit. She showed some GREAT video of at-risk 6th graders gleefully immersed in here virtual environment, and supported Merrilea's research citations of children who were D students improving into the B range by means of their engagement in virtual environments.

Finally, friend Kathy Schrock led us, through the laptop talents of self-described "autodidactic techno artsy craftsy eclecticist" George Brett working the local Second Life interface, through an inworld powerpoint presentation detailing the history of her Nauset Public Schools teacher ProfDev work at Lighthouse Learning Island.

At the end of it all there were only a few moments for Q and A, and there were some good ones, centering around the differences in using VEs as stages for learning objects or using them as sociala networking platforms. Also there was a very nice little conversation about balance, coming from Tom (I didn't get your last name or your card) from the University of Michigan, who wonders, as many of us do, just how we can keep our lives in balance and still benefit from and participate in these brave new worlds. My response was that it's a work in progress, but we need to learn how to model the importance of balance for our students, "because there's not going to be any less information coming down the pike at them in the future."

Here's the slideshow from the few pics I've taken. I'm going to upload to Picasaweb as I go so be sure to check back.



All the presentations will be available at the Internet2 site soon. I'll post the link here when I get it. My own presentation is at Slideshare, or it should be. I left it rendering. Let me check...Ah, yesssss there it is:

Merrick Internet2 Panel On Virtual Worlds

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

Gearing Up for Internet2, New Orleans!

Hey, all,

The program is complete for the upcoming meeting of the Internet2 Special Interest Group in New Orleans, Louisiana in two weeks. I'll be there, participating in a panel called Virtual Worlds: The Future is Now. I'd like to thank the Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach for sending me, University School of Nashville for supporting me with professional leave, and my family for allowing me to take 3 days away from home the week before artclectic2008!

It's a very full set of days, as a reading of the program will certainly verify. If you have anything you'd like me to consider sharing out to this prestigious conference, please comment here or contact me directly at scott@scottmerrick.net. Here's the text from the program describing my panel:

Virtual Worlds: The Future is Now
October 14, 2008, 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
UTC/GMT -5 hours (CDT)
Location: Nottoway

Margaret Corbit, Cornell University
Ben Fineman, Internet2, Moderator
Chris Melissinos, Sun Microsystems
Scott Merrick, Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach
Rob Rothfarb, Exploratorium
Kathy Schrock, Nauset Public Schools

This first of two virtual worlds panel discussions sponsored by the Teaching & Learning SIG and the K20 Initiative will bring together a diverse set of speakers across several sectors including Higher Education, K12, Informal Education, and Industry to discuss the current landscape of virtual reality environments for research and education. An examination of several worlds including Second Life, Active Worlds, and Lively will reveal the unique challenges and opportunities for using these and other emerging virtual worlds within the constraints of real world goals and outcomes. The panelists will also have an opportunity to present their vision for where these virtual worlds can take us, especially combined with the power of advanced networks and technologies and the development communities in support of advanced networking.