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Excited over a virtual laptop

22 January 2010 – 2:03 pm

In building our OpenSim estate on Reaction Grid, I needed a virtual laptop for a few of the activities there. As a government owned agency, Education.au needs to model good digital citizenship - so photographing one of my own laptops was out of the question due to issues of Intellectual Property.

Our new Dell XPS1710

So I contacted several computer manufacturers asking if they had photos of their products I could use to build a virtual laptop for an educational project. NO response — until, my friend Joanna McKay (aka Jokay of Jokaydia in Second Life and Reaction Grid) suggested I make a trip to Dell Island in Second Life.

The representative there was very helpful, thought my pitch that providing me with a digital laptop made good marketing sense was valid and referred me onto the sim manager. Lo and behold, a few weeks later — our ImmersED Estate now has a virtual laptop to give away.

If you’d like one for your sim, visit the Resource Centre at our island on Reaction Grid (currently called Education.au - soon to be ImmersED Estate). Send a DM to Pandora Kurrajong or Tessie Testa in-world.

Not on ReactionGrid as yet?

All you need is a free account and the Hippo OpenSim viewer (you can use a Second Life viewer by modifying some information, but Hippo is made to work with OpenSim).

Visit the “Get Started” section of the ImmersED web site - http://immersed.net.au#getstarted for details.

By KerryJ | Posted in Educationau, virtual worlds, ImmersiveLearningUnit, ImmersED, OpenSim, virtualworldsandeducation | Comments (2)

Second Life: rumours of demise greatly exaggerated?

11 January 2010 – 1:58 pm

I’ve had numerous people ask if I’d seen an article in PCPRO called “Whatever happened to Second Life?” in which the author shares his experience of Second Life of being a ghost town at best and a porn haven at worst. If the piece had merely been about the author’s experience and he’d asked for input, I would have felt more positive about it. The fact he seems to issue a Time of Death on Second Life without digging any further points to the need for information literacy skills to be taught to chroniclers and writers of all ilks - journalists, OpEd writers, bloggers - professional and otherwise.

Friday Night AdelaideFirst up, take a peek at the photo to the right of the virtually empty street. It is one I took of a main thoroughfare in downtown Adelaide on a Friday night at 11:30. From it, you might conclude that Adelaide is sparsely populated or its downtown area isn’t popular. However, a few streets away the streets are busy with people coming in and out of dance clubs, comedy clubs, late night coffee haunts and late night movies. During the daylight hours this street hums with activity from business people, university students, tourists and shoppers.

Now port that over to the virtual world and multiply it by the time zones of a globally dispersed populace. For this, I’ll direct you to an excellent article written by Tateru Nino regarding the erroneous comparison of Second Life to Real Life in terms of traffic and use expectations: http://www.massively.com/2010/01/07/the-second-life-ghost-town/

Awaiting the Nebraska launch Project Nebraska / Second Life Enterprise launch in Second Life 430am my time 5 November 2009 - 1 amongst hundreds of avatars in multiple venues

Dressed for work in the morning Same venue as above, 12 hours earlier

This blog post isn’t a defense of Second Life. It applies to most Massively Multiplayer Online Environments - be they games or virtual worlds. I’ve played on a World of Warcraft server and not bumped into more than 5 other real people (the game is also populated by automated people and beasts). However I can also log in at times where my little gnome mage has to thread her way through throngs of people and can take part in 25-person raids.

If the usefulness of virtual worlds to you involves other people with which to socialise and share — and that for me is the main attraction — then as in real life, plug into what is happening when and where. There are excellent resources for educators regarding virtual worlds such as Jo Kay’s Jokaydia Virtual Worlds Wiki and an events calendar on http://sledevents.blogspot.com/ I also find the Metaverse Journal http://www.metaversejournal.com/ an excellent source for what’s up in Virtual Worlds in general.

And if you’re interested in World of Warcraft, I’m a member of Cognitive Dissonance, an international guild of educators who play together (and talk about pedagogy and education sometimes) on the Sisters of Elune Server.

By KerryJ | Posted in Educationau, Second Life, virtual worlds | Comments (3)

Wanted: clothing and hair designers for OpenSim project

15 December 2009 – 10:08 am

I am looking for leads on clothing and hair creators/designers for Education.au’s Open Sim project. I am in need of a range of clothing for women including autumn and summer casual, neat/business casual, business, food service and construction site and for men autumn and summer casual, neat/business casual, food service and construction site. Hair along the same lines.

The clothing,hair and accessories we commission will be given away and it will be/could be used on a variety of Open Sim grids. Leads on skin designers would also be much appreciated. All textures and designs must be copyright cleared.

I have looked at SL Exchange and will continue to search for template/business in box deals that do not restrict use in Open Sim — but I am concerned that many designers are inadvertently violating copyright by photographing their own clothing and using that as textures for fashion. As a government-owned agency, we must be careful to ensure copyright and IP guidelines are adhered to.

Thank you for your time and consideration. If you do know of anyone, please send their details (or pass mine along to them) to: kjohnson@educationau.edu.au

In Second Life, OpenSim on Reaction Grid (where I am building our project) and OpenSim OS Grid (where I sometimes pop in) - I am Pandora Kurrajong.You can find more contact information on the About page of my personal/professional blog - http://kerryj.com/about/

By KerryJ | Posted in Educationau, virtual worlds | Comments (0)

Nominated for an Edublogs Award

12 December 2009 – 1:35 am

Thank you to those of you who nominated me for an Edublogs Award (affectionately known as an Eddie) for best audio, for the work I do in covering conferences and live events! It was a lovely surprise.

The Edublogs Awards recognise contributions to education over an array of online tools including blogs, video, audio and Twitter - and across a decent spread of categories too. To vote, visit the Edublogs web site: by 16 December - click on the badge below to get to the audio category.

By KerryJ | Posted in Educationau, online events, copyright | Comments (0)

Our broadband future - bbfuture - Adelaide event

11 December 2009 – 10:33 am

Is broadband a game changer for how we use technology? How about how we conduct business, learn, relate to government, find and use information, live our lives? And what risks are inherent in a national broadband initiative?View from my laptop

These were some of the many issues tackled in yesterday’s national consultation on the National Broadband Network. There was a face to face conference at the University of New South Wales, but consultations were held in Parramatta, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide as well, feeding in the live video stream. http://broadbandfuture.gov.au/

There were so many outstanding speakers in the morning - Vint Cerf, Mike Quigley, Jeffrey Cole, Kate Lundy, Nick Gruen - and the food for thought they provided really fed our discussion session. I’m going to watch them all again as our connection was a bit sporadic/erratic. The Twitter stream was a raging torrent and for me is no longer a backchannel - but a side channel. http://wthashtag.com/Bbfuture

Jeffrey Cole made the point that the always on aspect of broadband internet was the initial game changer but now the speed opens up a whole new internet. He argues that the difference between dial up and broadband users is wider than that between non-users and dial-up users. He also points out that always on, broadband internet (and wifi) has brought computers from the bedroom to the main living areas of the home.

Dr. Nick Gruen, from the Government 2.0 task force (reading the draft report is high on my to do list - http://gov2.net.au/ - ) made some great points concerning freedom of information and allowing access to data. He suggests that rather than locking away data by default - governments should make non-sensitive data freely available by default and let citizens use it, mash it up, make meaning of it. He showed some amusing mashups - one was a mashup of a Google map with hot spots for magpie swoops. He pointed out that this seemed light and fun — but for a bicyclist, it could literally be a lifesaver. He also introduced Google Side Wiki - http://www.google.com/sidewiki/intl/en/index.html to point out that whether governments like it or not, people can and do find ways to comment on web sites and activities. Complacency isn’t an option.

Mike Quigley - CEO of NBN Co - gave a high level, technical overview of the proposed NBN (at least, for some of us on Twitter it was technical).

Dave King of YouTube got roundly flayed on Twitter for what they felt was a sales pitch on YouTube’s business model (it’s about eyeballs folks).

Vint Cerf of Google was far to short - Innovation alone is not enough to create new wealth, it’s about adoption. Not only do you need to invent, you need to show why people need to use these new ideas and people. In the US, discussions about openness are going on because very few broadband providers - he felt that we were doing it right - breaking apart the providers of bits delivery and the application providers.

The discussions that followed the speakers centred around 5 “streams”:

Smart Infrastructure
e-Health
Digital Education
e-Business
Community

What stood out in our Adelaide discussion was the need for community education on a large scale. How can we help those just getting on the internet or with limited expertise to use it effectively? Is there a role for the Adult and Community Education? What sorts of resources are needed?

We also discussed the problem of the widening digital divide — and pondered whether the role for mobile connectivity. Creative Commons was also a part of our musings relating to e-Government. We also discussed what metrics should be used to determine who gets broadband first. Should it be country areas with limited services and struggling economies in order to connect them to e-Health services and e-Business? Or should it be the major capitals that power our economy in order to remain competitive on a global scale?

Regarding Smart Infrastructure, I’ll admit to not having briefed myself fully on this. The Prime Minister gave the example of smart meters in homes to measure electricity consumption. A gentleman at our discussion said to me that the difficulty in bringing this to fruition is resistance from the power companies.

The ideas from the main site are available here: http://broadbandfuture.gov.au/wiki.html - the ideas from the satellite events will be compiled from various wikis.

You can also view input from the public from the Google Forum:http://www.google.com/moderator/?expr#16/e=402

My thanks to DFEEST for pulling the Adelaide event together on short notice and to all there for the excellent conversation and insights.

By KerryJ | Posted in Educationau | Comments (0)

Realising Our Broadband Future - tell the government what you think - before 9pm tonight

9 December 2009 – 2:47 pm

The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy want to hear from you and have set up a Google Forum ready and waiting for your input on how we could best use a National Broadband Network.

There are 5 categories and you are welcome to submit ideas (240 characters long) to each as well as to vote on the ideas already submitted. You can also attach a YouTube video link (no educators, the irony is NOT lost on me) to support your idea.

The 5 categories are:

e-Business
e-Health
Digital Education
e-Communities
Smart Infrastructure

This closes at 9pm tonight (Wednesday 9 December) - so get a move on and be heard!

By KerryJ | Posted in Educationau | Comments (1)

e-Sofa for Education.au Estate

8 December 2009 – 10:52 am

In creating assets for Education.au’s virtual world activities, copyright is always front of mind for me. Over the years, any virtual world texture that has been released with open permissions has been recycled and re-used so often that it’s almost impossible to know where it originated and who owns the copyright.  Are patterns in rugs or carpets copyright? What about plaids? (Burberry seems to think so.) I know material patterns can be, so taking a photo of the material that makes up your favourite outfit and using that as a texture for a virtual world could be a copyright or IP violation.

So I created a texture for a signature sofa for Education.au using the unique “E” in our logo described as “a unique, hand-drawn signature”. I used our corporate colours (as close to them as I could get using Open Sim), an open script for the sit animation and the result is pictured here.

IMPORTANT: This e-mail, including any attachments, may contain private or confidential information. If you think you may not be the intended recipient, or if you have received this e-mail in error, please contact the sender immediately and delete all copies of this e-mail. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not reproduce any part of this e-mail or disclose its contents to any other party. This email represents the views of the individual sender, which do not necessarily reflect those of Education.au except where the sender expressly states otherwise. It is your responsibility to scan this email and any files transmitted with it for viruses or any other defects. education.au limited will not be liable for any loss, damage or consequence caused directly or indirectly by this email.

Posted via email from kerryj’s neotenous posterous

By KerryJ | Posted in Educationau | Comments (0)

The trouble with trillions

20 November 2009 – 11:57 am

The internet has cracked the 1 billion mark — but what’s coming next dwarfs all that we’ve achieved and been able to wrap our heads around to date. How can we possibly prepare for a future where we need to think about connecting (and managing, or not) trillions of smart devices? This simple video is well worth the a few hundred seconds of your time:

Trillions from MAYAnMAYA on Vimeo.

This is a short film (a fast paced preview of a larger effort) by MAYA Design created to put some perspective on the invisible but fast approaching challenges and opportunities in the pervasive computing age. For more information please visit: http://www.maya.com/practices/research Really interested in the implications of a trillion-node world? Read Dr. Peter Lucas’s seminal white paper that not only predicted this sort of scaling and complexity but outlined some of the resilient patterns that we need to follow to get there from here. http://www.maya.com/portfolio/the-trillion-node-network

By KerryJ | Posted in Educationau, edauILU, 21stCenturyLearning | Comments (0)

Your next e-learning project: Make a case out of it why don’t you?

18 November 2009 – 11:12 am

So many educators across the sectors get funding for short-term projects that they feel should continue on after the funding ends. So often their great work gets a mention in a white paper or academic’s journal article and that’s the end of the story.

This discussion starter aimed to get people thinking about what makes for a good case study and translate that to making an effective business case for their projects to live on. I used this with a group at eDayz and really wish I’d done it as a wiki so I could add in their wonderful insights. I think I might do that with more of my discussion-starters in future…

Your next e-learning project: Make a case out of it why don't you?

View more presentations from Kerry J.
By KerryJ | Posted in Educationau, digital storytelling, blogging, edayz09 | Comments (0)

WWI Sim in Second Life

9 November 2009 – 2:36 pm

A colleague and I explored a Second Life destination dedicated to sharing the poetry and history of WWI.  It included various stops along the way to listen to audio and watch slide shows. It was very well done.

My colleague observed that as an observer, it didn’t feel immersive to her and that she was doubtful that even as a participant that it could stand alone to convey the depth of tragedy and the context of WWI.  I agreed with her that no virtual world simulation could stand alone as a delivery tool, but as a supplement could be powerful.  I would still want kids in my life to see Gallipoli and read a powerful novel like Ben Elton’s “The First Casualty”.  My colleague also observed that delivery method was a matter of personal taste and comfort as well.

Lunchtimes like this make me feel very lucky…

Posted via email from kerryj’s neotenous posterous

By KerryJ | Posted in Educationau | Comments (0)