Die/|\Hard 2.0 Returns

It's over! Nearly eight hundred people enjoyed two days and nights of community in the flesh before rezzing back to their SL selves. Of course, with people from as far away as Australia, the Netherlands, and China, the mileage would skew a bit, but according to a metrics report, the average attendee traveled 1,280 miles to get to this convention! As I stated before, the demographics of the attendees was as varied as you can imagine. And then, of course, there's the infamous Masquerade Ball! I suppose when I go next year, I will owe it to my readers to attend ...

This afternoon, I was able to watch Lori Bell present her panel on creating info learning communities, speaking of what the Alliance Library System has done and how collaborations took what seemed like a small impossible dream to a much larger level. The fruit of these collaborations, which has included at least leaveraging of the "presence" of the American Library Association on SL, to the following examples from panelists:

• Barbara Galik (Puglet Dancer) described how Lori got her involved in bringing the Bradley University library into SL and eventually winning an Innovate Teaching Award, which led to "materializing" the whole university campus in SL. (BTW, I met Puglet inworld during the Virtual World Librarianship course, where she was an instructor!) SL is such a part of Bradley now that it is included in this year's Homecoming activities.
  
  
• Craig Cunningham (Dewey Cunningham) discussed ELVEN (Education and Librarians in Virtual Environments) as well as the creation of a virtual campus of his school, National Lewis University, which gives out more masters degrees in teaching than any other university in the world.
  
  
• Mary-Carol Lindbloom (Korrigan Keynes) discussed the Renaissance Island simulation of Tudor England with a video and Powerpoint, calling it a "journey to authenticity."

Final Keynote to Education Track

In what I found the most inspirational talk of the convention, Dr. Larry Johnson of the New Media Consortium re-presented a speech he gave at the Symposium on Creativity in Second Life two weeks earlier this month. With a slide show showcasing the diverse artistry of SL running as he spoke, he spoke of how creativity has been boiled out of most people in the very place it should be nurtured: school. He pointed to Second Life as an example of where people are given a license to create and where one person may not be sufficient to bring a "vision" to life, groups will form to make that vision's blossoming inevitable! In SL, Dr. Johnson said, "discovery becomes the destination." He also praised the way in which the environment brings out the mentor in everyone ... that anyone who has succeeded in SL has most likely done so because of a mentor and in turn returns the favor to SL by mentoring someone else.

I was really blown away by this presentation, which concluded with showing a video by Robbie Dingo recreating the Starry Night painting by Vincent Van Gogh with the Don McLean song "Vincent" as the soundtrack.

I really wish more of my ALA colleagues had been able to attend this convention. It solidified my impression that we need to be here. (And I'll be blogging about that in my ALA Member Ning blog soon.)
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Still waiting for electric! So I cannot load the video and pix I took at SCLCC, though I was so disppointed with what I was getting on Saturday, I didn't bother with the camera yesterday. If you want pix, here's the Flickr group for the convention.

Sorry about the title of yesterday's article (and the promise of more!) with the "day two" business. Friday's SLCC was mostly registration and socializing, and Saturday was Day One. Sunday, today, is Day Two. We all gathered in the International Ballroom, picked up all the swag from exhibitors, and were then treated to a preview of Douglas Gayeton's "The Diaries of Molotov Alva." This ten-part series of machinma have been picked up for broadcast on HBO. As if Second Life doesn't get enough publicity, this really blows the doors off and shows off what it's about!

I need to work fast and get back to the convention, but a few quick notes about what else I saw this morning as well as yesterday afternoon that I had promised to blog, but discovered ALA security is only available till 5 p.m. on weekends. Thus, I did not have access to a PC till now. (Did I mention that HQ is like on the other side of the city from the Chicago Hilton?) I'm not usually this whiney but I'm getting tired of taking showers by candle light!

Yesterday, I followed a number of panels on the Education track. Some important points:

Learning is collaborative not competitive.

Barry Joseph (GlobalKids Bixby) had a great presentation about Global Kids and Best Practices for SL Education by handing out parts of a puzzle and asking attendees to forms groups to put them together. It was the model by which they have kids work together and learn.

This leads very well into one of this morning's presentations about "social entrepreneurism" and that if begun at an early age blossoms into incredible impacts (think Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Philip Rosedale) in later life. This was the message of Youth Venture speaker, Adam Aberman, Director of Online Global Strategy. He talked about change-makers, "people who recognize a problem, and take it upon themselves to solve it." Also on this panel was a "change-maker" we all know and love, Lori Bell (Lorelei Junot) who talked about how her small central Illinois organization started out with a little rental unit and grew it into the information archipelago we all work on in SL!

If I should not be able to get back later today, I would like to remark about the community that has attended this convention: it consists of blue hairs and real blue hairs! The diversity of people here is breathtaking and includes people with disabilities, most notably, Simon Stevens (Simon Walsh), whose profile is placed elsewhere on this page. His story is a very potent illustration of the real power of Second Life in affecting real life.

I've gotten so much information and inspiration from this convention, my head is liable to explore. Nonetheless, I must return to the afternoon sessions!

That's a quote from "El President" Philip Rosedale aka Philip Linden. In his keynote, he was brutally frank about being in our way as a company from doing what Second Life is supposed to do. He even wore a t-shirt that read "MISSING IMAGE" to underscore his public apology for the breakdowns that have plagued SL for the past four months. He also expressed pride that the community of SL is its most important asset. LL has only spent $20 million to get to this point in its history and if it disappeared, he was confident that "the Grid" would be rebuilt by that community. Finally, he reiterated that the virtual metaverse will be bigger than the Web, that the web of hyperlinks that still stand between one user and another will give way to the way avatars stand face to face.

But as he said, "the Web doesn't go down for maintenance on Wednesdays," but also said they are very close to having the kind of server stability that allows different versions to run together. Once that is achieved, those Wednesday mornings will be receding in the rear-view mirror.

Following on the heels of that keynote address was a keynote for the Education track by Connie Yowell, of the MacArthur Foundation, who have put up $50 million (USD) for funding Digital Media, Learning & Education projects over the next five years. She affirmed the idea that new paradigms in education are emerging that substantiate the significance of virtual worlds like SL. I hope to be able to point to her powerpoints, but here are the four sets of paradigm shifts see sees taking place:

Education --> Learning
Education is tied to place and time, learning is ubiquitous, occurring everywhere and always

Consumption --> Participation
Rather than being pushed at students, they actually pull information from whatever available source because it's tied to a specific and often "messy" problem

Individual --> Social
Obviously, with the Web 2.0 tools, the individual is no longer on his or her own and questions as well as answer coalesce in that social framework.

Direct transfer --> Imagination
Rather than sychronously receiving information, the student backs out of a virtual enviroment and must put it back together in the perspective of real life, which involves the imagination assisting in assimilating and understanding.

These last two shifts are helped tremendously by the ability to make public the student's "learning project" and get collaborative help.

What we see emerging from digital media and virtual worlds, then is networked imagination. Yonnell credits a lot of this way of thinking to Henry Jenkins and his book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide.

Caught the King Drive #3 to get to HQ to type this up. (Too bad I had to surrender my laptop last week -- lease was up -- or I could have stayed to blog "live." Yeah, right!)

Unless I find some folks to "commune" with, I'll be back again to this PC later tonight with more!
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I'm not sure of the quality, anyway, but using my son's camera, I've taken some photos and videos. However, my work PC doesn't accept SD cards, so I'll have to wait to post them from home . . . if electric has been restored!

I've just been back and forth from ALA to the Chicago Hilton and back (via the 146 going south and the 3 going north) so I can start this blog about the Second Life Community Conference (SLCC) that began this evening. I would have stayed longer and gone home to blog this, but the same storm that made travel here for out-of-town attendees a nightmare has knocked out electricity all over the Chicagoland area. (I also needed to get business cards because that is still SOP for this kind of event!) I just wish I had the fancy cards some of my SL friends carry where they have a screen cap of their avatar on one side and the dull first life contact information on the other.

We have these cool name badges that look like caps of our SL profiles, burlap bags for carrying stuff, and a conference t-shirt as part of our swag. People were much better prepared than I was! I had really hoped to find an Atari shirt like the one I often wear in SL. Didn't happen! I guess I'll settle for the Atari Jaguar shirt that almost matches one I have in SL. I saw people with orange hair and wild-looking boots. They're ready!

And mentally, I wasn't certain about how this would go. I'm an introvert and not wild about big gatherings, although ALA Conferences have given me greater confidence in facing crowds, I also know who to expect and look for. Here, I haven't a clue! And how could I? Anyone with whom I might be familiar isn't going to look familiar unless I can get a good glance at their namebadge and possibly recognize their avatar! Not likely with my eyesight!

Looking at the program is a chuckle! Everyone has two names! I actually threw off the person at the registration table because my badge name, which we were encouraged to create for ourselves, isn't the name I registered under! So I look forward with trepidation to tomorrow where we're all introducing ourselves with multiple names!

But it's all about community and the first time is always this way. And if all goes well, the second time around, I will know faces to go with the avatars and avatar names! Wish me luck!

More tomorrow!

I suppose it should come as no surprise that "one thing leads to another" in Second Life just as it often does in real life. I went to see an SL acquaintance a few weeks ago at a Gadgeteers Geek Meet, which is sponsored by Dr. Dobb's Journal. It was through her blog I became acquainted with the Metaversed blog and found out about the Geek Meet. Then I noticed they have a group called "Things to Do." Before I discuss that, though, I want to encourage you to visit the Metaversed blog because they've got podcasts and great articles about the business aspects of Second Life and other multiverses.

Gotta love that Things to Do name! I have a fairly high IQ, but when I encounter simple things, I dumb down real fast. I remember in college when I applied for a job at a local factory, I was told I would be a Material Handler. I asked, "What does a Material Handler do?" And the human resources fellow smiled at me, and drawled, "Well, he handles material!" So don't let the name fool you, the Things to Do group suggests on a very regular basis things to do in SL (see this list of past goings on).

Being an sf buff, I went on their most recent visit to StarBase 3C. SB3C has several locations in SL as well as on the Internet. The SkyBar offered music, Free Video, and trivia contests every Thursday, plus what they call "casual roleplaying" where you pretty much agree to meet with friends and play agreed-upon scenarios. You could also purchase starships! At the Sky Cinema, you can park your starship and watch old retro sf movies. At Starbase Zerelia, you can park your starship and roleplay in a large starbase.

I've uploaded a number of screenshots from various events I've gone to in a folder called ToD. Joining the group is easy and free, just search for "Things to Do."