ALA Conference in SL?

[Lisa Coleman]

Recently, having become a resident in Second Life, I attended a Best Practices in Education conference on May 25. I only attended one presentation and walked around a bit, but I made an attempt, nonetheless. Did anyone else attend this? And, I wonder if ALA would ever consider a live feed from an ALA conference session. I know that I would attend, because I can't afford to go to the Conference every year, and at our library, we take turns attending conferences. How would one go about suggesting this? Comments?

~ Lisa

[Lisa Coleman]

Wow, I can't believe how much an Internet connection costs so much. Because I don't know the nuts and bolts of the background of Second Life, I don't know why that is. After the fact podcasts of speakers (that have given permission) does seem to be the way to go. I'll look forward to what comes next!

[Jenny Levine]

I'm working on this, too - Donavan, we need to talk! The first issue with a live feed is that most of the rooms don't have an internet connection due to the high cost of such connections.

I've had some discussion with Loriene Roy about holding a simultaneous virtual inauguration in Second Life, but I've since found out that the banquet room does not have wireless and that a wired connection would cost $675. No one has budgeted for that, so I'm not sure where the money would come from. And while it doesn't sound like a lot, that kind of money on a per room basis (or the flat fee for all rooms) get very expensive very fast, especially across multiple venues.

Still, I'm also talking to OPAL about possibly broadcasting a live audio feed from rooms that do have connections. The major issue there is that we don't have any permission forms from the speakers to do this, so if we are able to pull something together, it will depend in part on which speakers allow us to do this. So at this point, podcasting audio after the fact may be our best bet for this conference.

If anyone has further suggestions for this kind of thing, we'd love to hear them. The time to start planning for Midwinter and Annual 2008 is now!

[Lisa Coleman]

Thanks Donavan, glad to hear it! I'm looking forward to any events that ALA offers in SL. :) Have a good day!