http://blip.tv/file/2435685 [err... problems posting the video here for some reason when the embed code worked on Posterous just fine.]
This is probably one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while. (:
If you’d like to visit the tree yourself click here for a teleport. This was created by Second Life resident Bryn Oh. Click here if you’re interested in viewing other machinima she’s been working on.
October 9, 2009
Bryn Oh’s Eerie “Willow” Build at UTSA Art Space – Wow… o.o
Birthday Tribute to John Lennon in Second Life
Commissioned by Yoko Ono herself. She posts a link to the SL location on her twitter feed. Wait…. What?
Teleport by clicking here!
October 7, 2009
October 1, 2009
Imperial College London Provides Nursing Training via Second Life
I’ve been looking into nursing education and training available on Second Life. Imperial College London, a sim located on SciLands, has an impressive start providing training to its med students. (It’s important to mention that this project was in no way meant to replace real life training. It’s just a distance learning tool for those who learn well that way.) The activity takes place in a respiratory ward where students practice basic protocol on four different patients with varying symptoms. Before getting started your avatar must first wash his or her hands (protocol that is just as annoying in a virtual world as in a real one). After reviewing the patient profile and listening to audio of the patient’s breathing patterns, there are a number of different tests that can possibly be run. That’s actually as far as I got because I have no idea what each of the tests are for, haha. More to come soon!
September 28, 2009
cogito ultsch at untold ark art gallery
Some awesome stuffs built by Second Life resident Cogito Ultsch. 
Click here to view the art displayed in the photograph. More work by Cogito can also be found at Tejano Tech, a University of Texas San Antonio sim part of SciLands.
September 25, 2009
“UT System Project – 50 sims” – Guestblogger Joe DeCristoforo on VLCI
Joe DeCristoforo, UTSA Campus Lead for the Virtual Learning Community Initiative, guest blogs for Thinkerer Melville summarizing the project I am helping with as part of the undergraduate team at the University of Texas – Austin. [original link here]
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UT System Project – 50 sims
Fri, 09/25/2009 – 14:04 — Thinkerer Melville
The University of Texas project Transforming Undergraduate Education Program is building a statewide virtual learning community of students, faculty, researchers and administrators. The project has 50 sims in Second Life to support that effort. (These may still be in construction and not yet open to the public.)
A friend of mine is involved in that project, so I asked him to write a summary as Guest Bogger.
Guest Blog by Joe DeCristoforo
Asst VP and University Registrar at The University of Texas at San Antonio
University of Texas System Transforming Undergraduate Education project
The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) is just one of 16 component institutions that are part of the University of Texas System Transforming Undergraduate Education grant. In addition to UTSA, there are eight other UT system universities (UT Austin, UT Dallas, UT Permian Basin, UT Tyler, UT Arlington, UT Brownsville, UT El Paso, and UT Pan American) and six health science centers (UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, UT Medical Branch at Galveston, UT Health Science Center at Houston, UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and UT Health Science Center at Tyler), plus the UT System governing office – all totaling a near 50 island Archipelago in Second Life – the largest higher education, system wide project of its kind to date in this virtual world.
This project is officially called the “Virtual Learning Community Initiative” and is the brain child of Dr. Leslie Jarmon, senior lecturer from UT Austin who teaches in the Division of Innovation and Instructional Assessment area. The purpose of this project is to stimulate creative approaches to instruction that increase student access and success while being cost-efficient or reducing instructional costs at all 16 campuses. This project has two distinct but inter-related tracks: (a) At the UT System Level – a system-wide virtual collaborative learning community of students, faculty, researchers, staff, and administrators and (b) At the Course Level – to improve the learning experiences and opportunities for individual undergraduate students and all other learners
On August 25, 2009, all 16 component project leads met at the UT System main office in Austin, Texas, to review the grant and assorted initiatives. Since this grant itself relates directly to virtual worlds, that was the only time that all components will meet in the same, shared physicai space. The group will hold all of its other meetings in virtual space (approximately twice monthly until July 2010).
There is a great sense of excitement and enthusiasm with each of the component institutions, which is evident in how easily each area is willing to share information with each other to promote the goals and objectives of this grant. Though this $250,000 grant project is only being funded for one year, there is a hope that each institution will see the value of this technology on their respective campuses and continue the UT System archipelago; hopefully, with even more islands and initiatives! For more information, please visit the VLCI web site.
July 30, 2009
reflection
My brother sent me a slurl to this place to check out their floors. The lights on the walls are reflecting on the floor! I was wondering how they did it and he told me to swing my view down below the floor. All they did was build the city twice, and the floor is slightly transparent. GENIUS.
July 28, 2009
more silly time with aeri
Just some pictures of Aeri and Igoofing around in a photobooth around 3 or 4 in the morning a few days ago. Then we found a playground next door! Yaayyyy! I forgot the name of the store that brought me to that vicinity, but I was browsing plants and patio furniture for ideas for building my mom a pretty home somewhere in Second Life. Her computer won’t run SL very well, but I’m glad she logged in and enjoyed the place anyway. She wants to build a garden! I’m so proud. ^_^
new citizens incorporated offers free interactive classes to SL residents
Last week I attended my first Second Life tutorial within Second Life! Personally I really enjoy Torley’s tutorial videos because they are not only extremely helpful but I find him hilarious, but if you’ve yet to experience learning Second Life tools within an interactive classroom environment you’re missing out. I started my journey by searching for building (my favorite of skills) classes under “events” and specified “educational” to narrow down the results; if you search the same be sure you have both “PG” and “Mature” checked when you search.
I came across a school named New Citizens Incorporated that teaches classes over a variety of different skills at different levels, and all for free! They also have freebie shopping that’s pretty decent for being free, and help centers with someone working at all hours to help answer your questions and point you in the right direction. NCI is for residents of all skill levels but is first and foremost triggered towards new residents. If you are completely new to Second Life I would suggest first attending classes over “SL Skills”, where they will teach you the basics of camera control, searching Second Life, searching and managing your inventory, etc; I thought I was well beyond these skills but it turns out there are some camera tricks I was unaware of, not to mention my inventory is a mess and I had no idea I could fix that. O.O Lol!
On NCI’s site (linked above) you can find a course schedule, descriptions of individual courses including their skill level, a list of NCI’s instructors and employees that you can contact on SL, and a list of landmarks to all their classrooms and help locations. I just went to their site though, and it seems they are currently switching hosts and temporarily down. I’m not sure how long they will be down and if they will maintain the same URL, but I’ll give an update when I find out! (: In the meantime, I actually have their weekly course schedule typed up including landmarks to their classrooms if you’d like to download the document (.doc).
Below is a picture I took while Aeri and I took the class over building low prim homes with SL user “cutflower Oh”. It was a lot of fun! I sat up front by a wolf who was pretty full of himself. He came in all, “Oh I already know how to do this stuff, lol, I just want to see if I learn anything new.” Then he left within the first five minutes of class. Pffft, what a jerk. Haha, just kidding. (: Ohhh, and also I want to include a picture of NCI’s professor “Protomas Ludwig” who taught an animation class that I showed up late for. When Protomas types there are strawberries that fly out with the typing animation! It’s adorable.
July 10, 2009
day before the event
I was getting pretty stressed out when I realized that the scripting we needed to do, although basic, was going to be really difficult to figure out in a short period of time. Especially considering I’m not used to reading that type of language. I ended up just buying the machine on xstreet (https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=117089 – links are still acting weird on here..), which is what I should have done in the first place. I guess I got ahead of myself when I assumed that since it was “basic” and plenty of other people know how to do it, then I could too. I really waited too late to start dabbling in it. That stuff frustrates me. I’ll pick up on my own time, but when I’m sitting there for hours trying to set up a single script I get all irritable and act like a child. I’d make several balls roll out while I clicked my mouse repeatedly in anger, and then run my avatar around and scatter them. Yeah, for now I think I’ll stick to building and my next project, which is to play with animations using qavimator. My first run of that program I created a new walk for my futuristic looking avatar. I think over time and with practice I could do a nice job animating. It’s set up to look and run like you’re building on SL, and although rotations are my weak point with building I’m getting better as I practice building things other than flat surfaces for landscaping purposes.
Our group’s new plan to bring some physics on to the field is simply to take snapshots of ourselves and the different parts of the pitching and hitting process. I want Jeremy to add some physics facts over a few of the pictures to turn them into posters to put alongside the baseline. The interactive part won’t include anything educational on its own, but I guess that’s okay. We also all bought uniforms so we’d stand out as being the people who set things up in case anyone had questions. Our event isn’t going to be the kind that really needs leading around. I think we’ll have the flow of the place set up obvious enough, though it’d be nice if I could figure out how to turn off ‘flying’.
Below is a picture of me in my new skin and my baseball uniform for tomorrow, flying above the field I built. I lol’d when I saw the huge box on the field when I signed in. I remembered Aeri was sitting on a bench by the baseline when I’d signed out for a short while, and Sigar likes to stop by and check on my scripting tragedies. Ever since the box war there’s always a box ready for her when he sees her. She likes to hang around and bother the Ateam when they work because she’s so bored, haha. When I took this picture I realized that this is the first time I’ve ever felt sentimental about something on SL. The pitching machine I slaved over just to buy a pre-made one; the box and memories of time spent goofing off with a neighboring group; the ridiculousness of the baseball uniform against my avatar’s futuristic skin and thin frame. I’m starting to see how “Second Life” really is the appropriate name for this virtual program.
